How is a religion objectively true? Does this mean it's true, even if no-one believes it?
Yes - for a Christian this is built-in, I think - Jesus asks 'when the Son returns, will he find Faith on Earth?' (more-or-less) which suggests the answer could be 'no'.
For me, materialist attempts to find 'the good' (and avoid 'the bad') seem a bit like machine learning problems I used to play with when dinosaurs roamed the earth and 286s took a lonnng time to run home-brew iterative search algorithms. If you tried it without god (the experimenter) and let it really search, it would always come up with the Wrong answer. Then one would need to constrain it a bit here and there, and change the start location for the search, and generally tune the f*** out of it to get the answer one was looking for.
To get back to the OP, I've challenged my kids to come up with Good ways of living which *really* turn God off (in all the 'just is' stuff which we the experimenters want to inject), and so far they're with me. If they come up with one which I find convincing, I'll start a thread to share it.
I don't really understand the idea of "finding good ways to live, which turn God off". Nearly all my family were atheists, and they seemed to manage OK, in terms of living and loving. Why wouldn't they?
I thought that objectivity pertained to natural phenomena, which this isn't.
That is not part of the definition of 'objectivity'.
An example of a natural subjective truth would be one's gender. One can grow up thinking one is cis- not realising one is trans- (one can be mistaken or confused about it which is what makes it a truth), and other people can perhaps help one realise this by observing the outworkings in one's behaviour; but ultimately it's a fact to which only the one person has access.
The existence of non-natural objective truths is controversial. But if there aren't any non-natural objective truths there aren't any non-natural subjective truths either.
(The word 'natural' is doing a lot of work here, and I think some of that work is papering over confusion. It is not well-defined.)
Why are you still talking about enabling the species to survive? Presumably because it sounds more like science even though from a scientific point of view it is rubbish.
I mention it because it is part of how we came to be who and what we are. Once fire was used and groups of humans sat together around it, there would have been, wouldnd’t there, one who used his or her imagination to tell a bit of a story occasionally? This would have helped hold the group together. There is of course no proof of this, but consistent interpretation of archaeological evidence seems to indicate that people told stories, because they thought that for example articles were needed by the dead.
This stuff about people sitting about the fire is I think true (though if I remember correctly fire evolved earlier than we have any evidence for artistic creation or burial of the dead) but that doesn't make it relevant.
Could you please say y you think my reference to survival (of the species) is rubbish?
Don't take my word for it. Look up group selection in wikipedia for instance. Any good book about evolution should cover why group selection doesn't apply to species like us.
A gene that aids the survival of the species as a whole at the expense of the individual who has the gene will never spread through the population. Genes only spread if they aid the reproduction of the individual or of their immediate kin.
In fact, for the most part, the major competitors for reproduction for any individual are other members of the same species. (See Chapter Three of On the Origin of Species.) A gene spreads if it gives the individual an advantage over members of the same species and not otherwise.
Altruistic behaviour does evolve but only in circumstances where either the beneficiaries are likely to be related (and thus share more genes than average members of the same species), or else where it is likely to be reciprocated.
What is it that is so different in the ethical code of Christianity that sets it quite apart?
I have already mentioned that modern secularists do not approve of abandoning unwanted babies. That's because Christians in the ancient world did not approve of it.
I think all societies encourage people to do good to peers, kin, and people who are otherwise in a position to help in return. Christianity (along with Judaism and Islam) encourages people to do good to people who are not kin and not in a position to reciprocate. Ancient Roman society didn't.
Christianity has generally regarded violence as a bad thing, that needs justification. Yes, Christians have justified violence too often. But most ancient ethics think that violence against outgroups does not need justification and is actually praiseworthy as long as you win. (Buddhism and Jainism share this trait. I don't think anything else does.)
The idea that all human beings have rights is a development out of these ideas.
That's for starters anyway.
I don't get the arguments about letting the child choose as an adult. As has been said already, children get to choose about basically everything as adults--if they wish to leave off brushing their teeth then, they'll do so. So my raising my son in the Christian faith does not force Christianity on him lifelong, as if he were some sort of robot.
It's hard to reject, or even to properly accept, something you have been conditioned to believe is normal.
But there's also this: If you have something in your life that you seriously believe to be the way, the truth, and the life, the best thing that ever happened to you, the thing that humanity was made for, and so on and so forth--why ever would you withhold it from your child? It would be worse than withholding vaccinations on the grounds that the child can "choose" to be vaccinated as an adult.
Because what you believe in is only one subjective truth among many possible subjective truths. A pagan, atheist, white supremacist, artist, ethical vegan, communist, or whatever could use exactly the same argument and condition their child accordingly.
I prefer to show the child the available choices and ask them to question each of them. If they find one that agrees with them, all well and good.
First of all, you are never going to be able to show a child even a tenth of the choices that are out there, let alone do it equal-handedly. Nor should you, IMHO. One of the reasons we have elders is so that we can (hopefully) benefit from their (alleged) wisdom.
Now, about subjective truth. You need to define this. It appears from your usage that you mean "subject on which many people disagree without being held by rest of the human race to be complete lunatics." Correct me if that's wrong.
The problem lies in the word "truth." It does NOT mean "opinion" or "standpoint" or "position on subject X." It means something that is in fact correct, accurate, factual, corresponding to reality, regardless of the opinions of people.
Now you and I differ in our opinion of the status of Christianity, apparently. I believe it is in fact truth; you, it seems, do not.
That's fine. But what is not fine (or logical, or sensible) is to expect me to adjust my treatment of it to fit your opinion. I have evaluated it to be true, and therefore will behave accordingly (which includes handing it on to my children). I regret the fact that you think my evaluation to be in error, and therefore my behavior; but I am no more likely to change to suit you than I would be if I evaluated that creature coming down the street to be a polar bear while you took it to be a teddybear. While regretting our differences, I would still run right into the house and shut the door--and take my children with me.
I'm using subjective truth as a term to describe all of an individual's experience of life. Given we do not have the ability to comprehend objective truth there are as many truths as they are organisms able to sense their surroundings.
You need a better term, then, for the reasons I explained previously. "subjective truth" is not fit for purpose. What about "perception" or "perception of life"?
I don't really understand the idea of "finding good ways to live, which turn God off". Nearly all my family were atheists, and they seemed to manage OK, in terms of living and loving. Why wouldn't they?
In my view, nearly everyone manages to get to the 'right' answer, by (to return to my maths analogy) user-interference with the process of finding out what good and bad are, by parachuting in answers which require prior (in religious terms, transcendent) information - the exclusion of which materialists claim is vital, hence their denial of God. I don't claim for a moment that the Christian God is the only one on offer, or indeed the one your family unconsciously adopted - only that the dogmatism inherent in teaching my kids about God, is no different to the dogmatism involved in 'managing OK, in terms of living and loving'.
Well, OK, but we are social animals, and they famously develop ways of cooperating, using fairness and punishment, and so on, e.g., wolves, apes. I'm not sure why humans didn't develop similarly, although obviously with greater powers of abstraction and self-consciousness. Don't see what materialism has to do with it.
I can get the idea that Christ exists before or outside time, but don't see how that is objectively true. I thought that objectivity pertained to natural phenomena, which this isn't.
If by "objectively" you mean "observably" (time being observable), then of course this is right; our observation is limited to the universe we live in.
I must say that, insofar as this is a thread about education, I'm finding it unhelpful abstract. Admittedly my child is only five, so I haven't wrestled with moral intricacies in intellectual depth.
But really, what I find curious is that teaching moral or ethical codes or whatever you want to call it seems to me only a small and the simplest bit of raising a good child (for some definition of the word 'good'). Obviously there are some acts deemed 'good' and others deemed 'bad' and a variety of rationales behind these judgements; and obviously there are both overlaps and discrepancies in how different people and groups make and justify these judgements. So much for philosophy; and of course I'm happy to instruct my child in these views, partly because my wife and I are both philosophical types and partly for pragmatic reasons. Given the school he goes to, he's going to be exposed to Islamic and Hindu thought a-plenty in the playground, and he's already heard about Greek and Norse gods in some stories we read. In terms of abstract worldviews, he'll have his pick, because he and we are in dialogue with them by the mere fact of existing.
But when it comes to praxis ... well, then there is not so much choice. When I try to teach him the value if forgiveness (which he often needs), it's Christian examples I cite, because those are the ones I know. When I talk to him about moral decision-making, it's in terms of prayer and discernment. When I try to convince him of the value of individuals other than himself, it's with a language borrowed willy-nilly from Francis de Sales, about God's love rather than human rights. We celebrate Christmas, and not Eid or the Kumbh Mela.
The *what* of being a good person is presented pretty much agnostically. But the *how* .... well, then one can only teach what one knows.
I can get the idea that Christ exists before or outside time, but don't see how that is objectively true. I thought that objectivity pertained to natural phenomena, which this isn't.
If by "objectively" you mean "observably" (time being observable), then of course this is right; our observation is limited to the universe we live in.
Well, I am trying to find out how religion is objectively true, with not a lot of luck.
I can get the idea that Christ exists before or outside time, but don't see how that is objectively true. I thought that objectivity pertained to natural phenomena, which this isn't.
If by "objectively" you mean "observably" (time being observable), then of course this is right; our observation is limited to the universe we live in.
Well, I am trying to find out how religion is objectively true, with not a lot of luck.
Well, if there is a God who existed before anything else, and who is still there even if no-one knows about him, then a religion that says so is in that respect objectively true.
I can get the idea that Christ exists before or outside time, but don't see how that is objectively true. I thought that objectivity pertained to natural phenomena, which this isn't.
If by "objectively" you mean "observably" (time being observable), then of course this is right; our observation is limited to the universe we live in.
Well, I am trying to find out how religion is objectively true, with not a lot of luck.
Well, if there is a God who existed before anything else, and who is still there even if no-one knows about him, then a religion that says so is in that respect objectively true.
That's a good attempt. But we can never find out, can we? By contrast, if I say that the earth goes round the sun, I can take steps to observe that or infer it. How can you do that with supernatural stuff?
I can get the idea that Christ exists before or outside time, but don't see how that is objectively true. I thought that objectivity pertained to natural phenomena, which this isn't.
If by "objectively" you mean "observably" (time being observable), then of course this is right; our observation is limited to the universe we live in.
Well, I am trying to find out how religion is objectively true, with not a lot of luck.
Well, if there is a God who existed before anything else, and who is still there even if no-one knows about him, then a religion that says so is in that respect objectively true.
That's a good attempt. But we can never find out, can we? By contrast, if I say that the earth goes round the sun, I can take steps to observe that or infer it. How can you do that with supernatural stuff?
Are you confusing "objectively true" with "demonstrably true"?
Interesting post about bringing up your child. May I ask - and please ignore this if you think it an intrusive question - whether you actually teach him that there is a God who loves him, gives assistance or anything?
Why are you still talking about enabling the species to survive? Presumably because it sounds more like science even though from a scientific point of view it is rubbish.
I mention it because it is part of how we came to be who and what we are. Once fire was used and groups of humans sat together around it, there would have been, wouldnd’t there, one who used his or her imagination to tell a bit of a story occasionally? This would have helped hold the group together. There is of course no proof of this, but consistent interpretation of archaeological evidence seems to indicate that people told stories, because they thought that for example articles were needed by the dead.
This stuff about people sitting about the fire is I think true (though if I remember correctly fire evolved earlier than we have any evidence for artistic creation or burial of the dead) but that doesn't make it relevant.
Could you please say y you think my reference to survival (of the species) is rubbish?
Don't take my word for it. Look up group selection in wikipedia for instance. Any good book about evolution should cover why group selection doesn't apply to species like us.
A gene that aids the survival of the species as a whole at the expense of the individual who has the gene will never spread through the population. Genes only spread if they aid the reproduction of the individual or of their immediate kin.
Yes, I agree. I have always thought of the natural selection to be concerning individuals, not the group. However, behaviours which enable the group and its individuals to survive are learned by each successive generation, aren't they, and therein I think lies the benefit. I'll look up 'group selection' later.
In fact, for the most part, the major competitors for reproduction for any individual are other members of the same species. (See Chapter Three of On the Origin of Species.) A gene spreads if it gives the individual an advantage over members of the same species and not otherwise.
Yes, but fortunately enough other factors have enabled our species to survive long enough for us, here and now, to exist!
Altruistic behaviour does evolve but only in circumstances where either the beneficiaries are likely to be related (and thus share more genes than average members of the same species), or else where it is likely to be reciprocated.
Agreed, but I think there is a much broader understanding of that nowadays since countries are prepared to help those in need in other countries far distant, even when reciprocation cannot be expected.
What is it that is so different in the ethical code of Christianity that sets it quite apart?
I have already mentioned that modern secularists do not approve of abandoning unwanted babies. That's because Christians in the ancient world did not approve of it.
I canot believe there were not many others who thought the same but who were believers in different gods and systems.
I think all societies encourage people to do good to peers, kin, and people who are otherwise in a position to help in return. Christianity (along with Judaism and Islam) encourages people to do good to people who are not kin and not in a position to reciprocate. Ancient Roman society didn't.
Christianity has generally regarded violence as a bad thing, that needs justification. Yes, Christians have justified violence too often. But most ancient ethics think that violence against outgroups does not need justification and is actually praiseworthy as long as you win. (Buddhism and Jainism share this trait. I don't think anything else does.)
The idea that all human beings have rights is a development out of these ideas.
That's for starters anyway.
well, that does seem to be a hugely sweeping generalisation and I do not have appropriate facts to challenge it, I'm afraid!
P.S. Re genes: Although there is not a 'group' gene, the genes that individuals have obviously give them the ability and inherited instinct/predisposition to behave in ways that enable survival!
Slightly tangential, but riffing off my last post ... @quetzalcoatl’s example took me back suddenly to high school French.
“Whether the earth or the sun revolves around the other is a matter of profound indifference.
—. Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”
Well, that made me laugh, a brilliant quote. I wonder if he would say the same about God.
Mt's point about demonstrably true is interesting, I will have to chew on that. One interesting aspect is prediction, since many hypotheses about the natural world are tested via predictions. If the moon and sun both cause tides, can we predict the height of tides from the position of sun and moon? No idea, but probably these will be judged to be objective facts.
“Whether the earth or the sun revolves around the other is a matter of profound indifference.
—. Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”
Well, that made me laugh, a brilliant quote. I wonder if he would say the same about God.
Well, now you're stretching the limits of my recollection of high school French classes. But But if memory serves he was actively opposed to Christianity, and certainly not indifferent.
I thought Camus was skeptical about everything, including his own skepticism. On the other hand, he recommended living sensuously, ("the warmth of the water and the brown bodies of women", (Summer in Algiers)), and he was in the resistance, I think.
Well, I am trying to find out how religion is objectively true, with not a lot of luck.
As KarlLB has said, there is a difference between 'objectively true' and 'observably true'. Indeed, 'objective' means there or not there whether or not anyone can observe it.
Godel proved that there are mathematical truths that are true but which cannot be proven. (Nor can we know which ones they are.) Those would be objectively true since whether they can be proven or disproven is independent of who is trying to do so.
As to whether religion is objectively true, wouldn't we all like to know for sure. But there are plenty of considerations telling both for and against.
Godel proved that there are mathematical truths that are true but which cannot be proven. (Nor can we know which ones they are.)
Not quite. Godel demonstrated that, for any consistent system of arithmetic with a finite number of axioms, there will be some sentences that are true but not provable within that system. The difference between what you said and what Godel said is that it is quite possible that any given sentence is provable within a different such system. In other words, he did not establish that there were some particular sentences that would be unprovable in any system.
I find this odd because it doesn’t fit any area of my experience of life except things that are simply matters of taste.
The red standing figure at the crossing means don’t cross.
The electricity in the overhead wires on the railway will probably kill or seriously injure you if you touch it.
The polio vaccine gives a high level of immune protection against the disease.
Ascending too fast from a dive depth of 30 metres or more is liable to give you the bends.
There are no competing truths there. Either the statements are true or they are not.
Sure there are epistemological issues in the area of religious belief - but they are about what and how we know, not about the possibility of co-existing different competing truths.
I would regard faith, including atheism, as little more than a matter of taste. I'm not an atheist out of conviction, but simply because it's the belief I like. Similarly, my attitude to Christianity and other monotheistic faiths is much the same as my attitude to tea: I don't like the taste.
Practical matters with real-world consequences, such as the ones you cite are, to me, a completely different matter.
I'm using subjective truth as a term to describe all of an individual's experience of life. Given we do not have the ability to comprehend objective truth there are as many truths as they are organisms able to sense their surroundings.
You need a better term, then, for the reasons I explained previously. "subjective truth" is not fit for purpose. What about "perception" or "perception of life"?
Those terms would do just as well. I don't think anything beyond the physical ability of human perception, even when enhanced by science, is attainable and even when it is attainable often it's not understandable. Do I accept the earth is 4.7 billion years old? Yes. Do I understand what that means? No, not in the slightest. It's true but outside by ability to comprehend.
I thought the truth of any religion is unknowable, except non-theistic religions, such as Jainism. That is the province of faith, I suppose, or, as cynics say, guessing.
Well, if there is a God who existed before anything else, and who is still there even if no-one knows about him, then a religion that says so is in that respect objectively true.
Are all religions/beliefs/mythologies that claim a god existed before everything else objectively true if we prove that there is a god of some description?
The difference between what you said and what Godel said is that it is quite possible that any given sentence is provable within a different such system.
By provable I mean provable within a given system. (Whether a statement in a system in which it is not provable is the same statement as one in which it is is I think a matter of taste.)
One could substitute for 'x is provable in this system', 'the system is consistent if and only if the system with x or some equivalent added as an axiom is consistent'. (Obviously you can't prove that the original system is consistent.)
Well, if there is a God who existed before anything else, and who is still there even if no-one knows about him, then a religion that says so is in that respect objectively true.
Are all religions/beliefs/mythologies that claim a god existed before everything else objectively true if we prove that there is a god of some description?
Well, if there is a God who existed before anything else, and who is still there even if no-one knows about him, then a religion that says so is in that respect objectively true.
Are all religions/beliefs/mythologies that claim a god existed before everything else objectively true if we prove that there is a god of some description?
"In that respect".
So even if somehow humans manage to demonstrate that there is a god or must have been a god/creator it would still leave which god (if any) of all the gods variously believed in by humans it might be.
Well, if there is a God who existed before anything else, and who is still there even if no-one knows about him, then a religion that says so is in that respect objectively true.
Are all religions/beliefs/mythologies that claim a god existed before everything else objectively true if we prove that there is a god of some description?
"In that respect".
So even if somehow humans manage to demonstrate that there is a god or must have been a god/creator it would still leave which god (if any) of all the gods variously believed in by humans it might be.
Yes. It would. You could only prove a particular religion is true if you could ascertain whether each of its truth claims was true.
So even if somehow humans manage to demonstrate that there is a god or must have been a god/creator it would still leave which god (if any) of all the gods variously believed in by humans it might be.
This doesn't make sense. That Islam or Shankaran Hinduism hold false beliefs about God if God is as described in Christianity makes sense. But to say that if Christian doctrines about God are true then Muslims so to speak hold true beliefs about a God that doesn't exist, that is nonsense.
If there is a creator God then all religions for whom being the creator God is a central.part of their definition of God worship that God.
It makes sense to talk about different gods only when they could in theory both exist at the same time.
So even if somehow humans manage to demonstrate that there is a god or must have been a god/creator it would still leave which god (if any) of all the gods variously believed in by humans it might be.
This doesn't make sense. That Islam or Shankaran Hinduism hold false beliefs about God if God is as described in Christianity makes sense. But to say that if Christian doctrines about God are true then Muslims so to speak hold true beliefs about a God that doesn't exist, that is nonsense.
If there is a creator God then all religions for whom being the creator God is a central.part of their definition of God worship that God.
It makes sense to talk about different gods only when they could in theory both exist at the same time.
I'm not sure you've grasped the point here. This is not about proving that God, as in the Christian God, exists, but imaging a scenario in which we somehow demonstrate (presumably through science) that there must have been a god, as in divine creator, of some kind.
The precise nature and identity of that god/deity would still be undefined and hence it could be the creator god of any number of beliefs and mythologies, extant and extinct, or indeed, none of them.
I must say that, insofar as this is a thread about education, I'm finding it unhelpful abstract. Admittedly my child is only five, so I haven't wrestled with moral intricacies in intellectual depth....When I try to teach him the value if forgiveness (which he often needs), it's Christian examples I cite, because those are the ones I know. When I talk to him about moral decision-making, it's in terms of prayer and discernment. When I try to convince him of the value of individuals other than himself, it's with a language borrowed willy-nilly from Francis de Sales, about God's love rather than human rights. We celebrate Christmas, and not Eid or the Kumbh Mela.
The *what* of being a good person is presented pretty much agnostically. But the *how* .... well, then one can only teach what one knows.
I don't know if it is helpful to be agreed with - but this is how I've done it / am doing it, too. Sometimes the kids do it for me - we were discussing the Greek words for love, I was stumbling around and my youngest suggested 'Jesus love' for agape, which is kind of a backwards version of the way that conversation normally goes. But then she was recently amazed to find out why we thought it funny when she informed us that 'Coronavirus has kind-of gone viral'. Like that Onion headline - 'I'm like a chocoholic, except with alchohol'
I tend to prefix my statements with 'I believe' rather than 'there is', when talking to my kids, and sometimes we challenge each others' beliefs.
The precise nature and identity of that god/deity would still be undefined and hence it could be the creator god of any number of beliefs and mythologies, extant and extinct, or indeed, none of them.
NB: the God of Islam is the God of Christianity.
Well, duh. That's part of what I'm getting at. At least you grasp that much.
Saying that the precise nature of the creator God remains undefined is sensible and true. The only caveat would be to say that Christian theologians have given some thought to what to do next. So Aquinas, having demonstrated, or tried to demonstrate, the existence of that which every people calls 'God', goes on to try to show that such a God must be good, unlimited in knowledge, and so on.
It's when you say that the identity of the creator god is still undefined that you're not making sense. If the creator god exists then all creator gods in whatever mythology are better or worse descriptions of that god.
The precise nature and identity of that god/deity would still be undefined and hence it could be the creator god of any number of beliefs and mythologies, extant and extinct, or indeed, none of them.
NB: the God of Islam is the God of Christianity.
Well, duh. That's part of what I'm getting at. At least you grasp that much.
Saying that the precise nature of the creator God remains undefined is sensible and true. The only caveat would be to say that Christian theologians have given some thought to what to do next. So Aquinas, having demonstrated, or tried to demonstrate, the existence of that which every people calls 'God', goes on to try to show that such a God must be good, unlimited in knowledge, and so on.
It's when you say that the identity of the creator god is still undefined that you're not making sense. If the creator god exists then all creator gods in whatever mythology are better or worse descriptions of that god.
This is the scale of the problem https://pagan.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_Deities
Every deity listed (and there are a lot that aren't) has as much likelihood of being (or most closely resembling) the creator god.
How we would even begin to discover the identity and nature of the god whose existence had been demonstrated defeats me. We wouldn't even be able to tell if the creator god/deity still exists.
Even "exist" is a naturalistic type word, so surely God cannot exist in that sense. For me, the supernatural defies comprehension, yet people liberally give it attributes, such as knowledge.
This is the scale of the problem https://pagan.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_Deities
Every deity listed (and there are a lot that aren't) has as much likelihood of being (or most closely resembling) the creator god.
How we would even begin to discover the identity and nature of the god whose existence had been demonstrated defeats me. We wouldn't even be able to tell if the creator god/deity still exists.
Most pagan deities are not considered by their believers to have created the universe, are they?
This is the scale of the problem https://pagan.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_Deities
Every deity listed (and there are a lot that aren't) has as much likelihood of being (or most closely resembling) the creator god.
How we would even begin to discover the identity and nature of the god whose existence had been demonstrated defeats me. We wouldn't even be able to tell if the creator god/deity still exists.
Most pagan deities are not considered by their believers to have created the universe, are they?
In all such ideas and comments, there seems to be an assumption that something created the universe, but since not one item of credible evidence can be brought forward to show that there was something which could do such a thing, then the hole edifice of gods founders right there. Anyone can, and has a right to, say they believe that God/god did this or that, but that's as far as it goes.
This is the scale of the problem https://pagan.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_Deities
Every deity listed (and there are a lot that aren't) has as much likelihood of being (or most closely resembling) the creator god.
How we would even begin to discover the identity and nature of the god whose existence had been demonstrated defeats me. We wouldn't even be able to tell if the creator god/deity still exists.
Most pagan deities are not considered by their believers to have created the universe, are they?
In all such ideas and comments, there seems to be an assumption that something created the universe, but since not one item of credible evidence can be brought forward to show that there was something which could do such a thing, then the hole edifice of gods founders right there. Anyone can, and has a right to, say they believe that God/god did this or that, but that's as far as it goes.
Not sure what your (dull, repetitive) post has to do with my comment.
Coming to this topic late, my questions include:
What sort of Christian values do you want to teach them?
What about Christians who choose violence (including war), who persecute other people for economic gain?
Are you wanting them to believe something specific, e.g., the born again and go to heaven narrative, or how to live?
The difference between what you said and what Godel said is that it is quite possible that any given sentence is provable within a different such system.
By provable I mean provable within a given system. (Whether a statement in a system in which it is not provable is the same statement as one in which it is is I think a matter of taste.)
One could substitute for 'x is provable in this system', 'the system is consistent if and only if the system with x or some equivalent added as an axiom is consistent'. (Obviously you can't prove that the original system is consistent.)
There is such a thing as Kreisel inconsistency. AIUI, Kreisel sentences are true but unprovable in any consistent system. I don't know much about Kreisel's work, and am unsure what constraints applied. It sounded like you were treating Godel incompleteness as Kreisel incompleteness.
My goal is that my son should live and trust as a disciple of Jesus. Being eighteen, my son has the freedom to toss all of that training out--the explicit verbal teaching and the learning-by-example, such as when we've taken him along on visits to the sick, enlisted him in social service projects, and the like. But for the time he was under my care as a child, I certainly did what I could to pass the, er, contagion of Christian faith along. Now it's on him to keep or reject it.
Well, OK, but we are social animals, and they famously develop ways of cooperating, using fairness and punishment, and so on, e.g., wolves, apes. I'm not sure why humans didn't develop similarly, although obviously with greater powers of abstraction and self-consciousness. Don't see what materialism has to do with it.
Just read an interesting article in Popular Science--yes, I know, this is like the Reader's Digest--that suggests it might have been the dog that domesticated the human, not the other way around. Of course humans then did selective breeding to eventually get to the animals we know now. The article also compared dogs to wolves. One thing I thought interesting was dogs generally like to eat in isolation--they do not want to share their food; however. while wolves may fight over who gets the first portion of a meal, they will eventually share the food with everyone in the pack.
A gene that aids the survival of the species as a whole at the expense of the individual who has the gene will never spread through the population. Genes only spread if they aid the reproduction of the individual or of their immediate kin.
Yes, I agree. I have always thought of the natural selection to be concerning individuals, not the group. However, behaviours which enable the group and its individuals to survive are learned by each successive generation, aren't they, and therein I think lies the benefit. I'll look up 'group selection' later.
I do not follow either the internal logic of this paragraph nor its bearing on the point at issue. You appear to be free-associating in lieu of argument.
In fact, for the most part, the major competitors for reproduction for any individual are other members of the same species. A gene spreads if it gives the individual an advantage over members of the same species and not otherwise.
Yes, but fortunately enough other factors have enabled our species to survive long enough for us, here and now, to exist!
First you said that evolved behaviours allowed the species to survive and now you're saying the species survived because of other factors despite evolution. (What other factors are you thinking of anyway?)
You appear to imply that we are here despite the fact that our ancestors had more children than their contemporaries. We are here because our ancestors had more children than their contemporaries.
Altruistic behaviour does evolve but only in circumstances where either the beneficiaries are likely to be related (and thus share more genes than average members of the same species), or else where it is likely to be reciprocated.
Agreed, but I think there is a much broader understanding of that nowadays since countries are prepared to help those in need in other countries far distant, even when reciprocation cannot be expected.
So now you are saying that there is a much broader understanding of ethical obligations nowadays that the behaviours that you said had arisen from evolution. What is the cause of that broader understanding then?
You say that it is not Christian ethical ideals. But if not Christianity what?
I have already mentioned that modern secularists do not approve of abandoning unwanted babies. That's because Christians in the ancient world did not approve of it.
I canot believe there were not many others who thought the same but who were believers in different gods and systems.
That appears to be 100% faith on your part (to use your phrase).
P.S. Re genes: Although there is not a 'group' gene, the genes that individuals have obviously give them the ability and inherited instinct/predisposition to behave in ways that enable survival!
More precisely the individuals' genes enable reproduction. But they enable the reproduction of the individual, and the species only incidentally. Genghis Khan's genes have spread through most people in Asia, but that wasn't because Genghis was doing anything to help the species survive.
When our ancestors among homo habilis had genes that evolved into modern humans, the rest of homo habilis did not survive.
That should have been Kreisel incompleteness. Sorry for any confusion I caused.
Wikipedia isn't any help. I don't see how you can have a proposition that isn't provable in any system. Suppose you have proposition K unprovable in system A. Now construct System A* by taking A and adding the additional axiom (K or (x and not x)). From that additional axiom K can be deduced trivially. I presume I must be missing something?
That should have been Kreisel incompleteness. Sorry for any confusion I caused.
Wikipedia isn't any help. I don't see how you can have a proposition that isn't provable in any system. Suppose you have proposition K unprovable in system A. Now construct System A* by taking A and adding the additional axiom (K or (x and not x)). From that additional axiom K can be deduced trivially. I presume I must be missing something?
As I said originally, I am not really knowledgeable about Kreisel's work. Here is a link to a reference that discusses it and has references to his work if you wish to learn about it. I find the idea of a Kreisel sentence rather counter-intuitive myself. My experience with such ideas is that, when you finally drill down, they contain less than meets the eye -- although that wasn't true for Godel's work, of course.
Comments
Yes - for a Christian this is built-in, I think - Jesus asks 'when the Son returns, will he find Faith on Earth?' (more-or-less) which suggests the answer could be 'no'.
For me, materialist attempts to find 'the good' (and avoid 'the bad') seem a bit like machine learning problems I used to play with when dinosaurs roamed the earth and 286s took a lonnng time to run home-brew iterative search algorithms. If you tried it without god (the experimenter) and let it really search, it would always come up with the Wrong answer. Then one would need to constrain it a bit here and there, and change the start location for the search, and generally tune the f*** out of it to get the answer one was looking for.
To get back to the OP, I've challenged my kids to come up with Good ways of living which *really* turn God off (in all the 'just is' stuff which we the experimenters want to inject), and so far they're with me. If they come up with one which I find convincing, I'll start a thread to share it.
An example of a natural subjective truth would be one's gender. One can grow up thinking one is cis- not realising one is trans- (one can be mistaken or confused about it which is what makes it a truth), and other people can perhaps help one realise this by observing the outworkings in one's behaviour; but ultimately it's a fact to which only the one person has access.
The existence of non-natural objective truths is controversial. But if there aren't any non-natural objective truths there aren't any non-natural subjective truths either.
(The word 'natural' is doing a lot of work here, and I think some of that work is papering over confusion. It is not well-defined.)
Don't take my word for it. Look up group selection in wikipedia for instance. Any good book about evolution should cover why group selection doesn't apply to species like us.
A gene that aids the survival of the species as a whole at the expense of the individual who has the gene will never spread through the population. Genes only spread if they aid the reproduction of the individual or of their immediate kin.
In fact, for the most part, the major competitors for reproduction for any individual are other members of the same species. (See Chapter Three of On the Origin of Species.) A gene spreads if it gives the individual an advantage over members of the same species and not otherwise.
Altruistic behaviour does evolve but only in circumstances where either the beneficiaries are likely to be related (and thus share more genes than average members of the same species), or else where it is likely to be reciprocated.
I have already mentioned that modern secularists do not approve of abandoning unwanted babies. That's because Christians in the ancient world did not approve of it.
I think all societies encourage people to do good to peers, kin, and people who are otherwise in a position to help in return. Christianity (along with Judaism and Islam) encourages people to do good to people who are not kin and not in a position to reciprocate. Ancient Roman society didn't.
Christianity has generally regarded violence as a bad thing, that needs justification. Yes, Christians have justified violence too often. But most ancient ethics think that violence against outgroups does not need justification and is actually praiseworthy as long as you win. (Buddhism and Jainism share this trait. I don't think anything else does.)
The idea that all human beings have rights is a development out of these ideas.
That's for starters anyway.
very interesting, as always. thank you - I'll be back tomorrow!
You need a better term, then, for the reasons I explained previously. "subjective truth" is not fit for purpose. What about "perception" or "perception of life"?
In my view, nearly everyone manages to get to the 'right' answer, by (to return to my maths analogy) user-interference with the process of finding out what good and bad are, by parachuting in answers which require prior (in religious terms, transcendent) information - the exclusion of which materialists claim is vital, hence their denial of God. I don't claim for a moment that the Christian God is the only one on offer, or indeed the one your family unconsciously adopted - only that the dogmatism inherent in teaching my kids about God, is no different to the dogmatism involved in 'managing OK, in terms of living and loving'.
If by "objectively" you mean "observably" (time being observable), then of course this is right; our observation is limited to the universe we live in.
But really, what I find curious is that teaching moral or ethical codes or whatever you want to call it seems to me only a small and the simplest bit of raising a good child (for some definition of the word 'good'). Obviously there are some acts deemed 'good' and others deemed 'bad' and a variety of rationales behind these judgements; and obviously there are both overlaps and discrepancies in how different people and groups make and justify these judgements. So much for philosophy; and of course I'm happy to instruct my child in these views, partly because my wife and I are both philosophical types and partly for pragmatic reasons. Given the school he goes to, he's going to be exposed to Islamic and Hindu thought a-plenty in the playground, and he's already heard about Greek and Norse gods in some stories we read. In terms of abstract worldviews, he'll have his pick, because he and we are in dialogue with them by the mere fact of existing.
But when it comes to praxis ... well, then there is not so much choice. When I try to teach him the value if forgiveness (which he often needs), it's Christian examples I cite, because those are the ones I know. When I talk to him about moral decision-making, it's in terms of prayer and discernment. When I try to convince him of the value of individuals other than himself, it's with a language borrowed willy-nilly from Francis de Sales, about God's love rather than human rights. We celebrate Christmas, and not Eid or the Kumbh Mela.
The *what* of being a good person is presented pretty much agnostically. But the *how* .... well, then one can only teach what one knows.
Well, I am trying to find out how religion is objectively true, with not a lot of luck.
Well, if there is a God who existed before anything else, and who is still there even if no-one knows about him, then a religion that says so is in that respect objectively true.
That's a good attempt. But we can never find out, can we? By contrast, if I say that the earth goes round the sun, I can take steps to observe that or infer it. How can you do that with supernatural stuff?
Are you confusing "objectively true" with "demonstrably true"?
“Whether the earth or the sun revolves around the other is a matter of profound indifference.
—. Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”
Interesting post about bringing up your child. May I ask - and please ignore this if you think it an intrusive question - whether you actually teach him that there is a God who loves him, gives assistance or anything?
P.S. Re genes: Although there is not a 'group' gene, the genes that individuals have obviously give them the ability and inherited instinct/predisposition to behave in ways that enable survival!
Well, that made me laugh, a brilliant quote. I wonder if he would say the same about God.
Mt's point about demonstrably true is interesting, I will have to chew on that. One interesting aspect is prediction, since many hypotheses about the natural world are tested via predictions. If the moon and sun both cause tides, can we predict the height of tides from the position of sun and moon? No idea, but probably these will be judged to be objective facts.
Well, now you're stretching the limits of my recollection of high school French classes. But But if memory serves he was actively opposed to Christianity, and certainly not indifferent.
Godel proved that there are mathematical truths that are true but which cannot be proven. (Nor can we know which ones they are.) Those would be objectively true since whether they can be proven or disproven is independent of who is trying to do so.
As to whether religion is objectively true, wouldn't we all like to know for sure. But there are plenty of considerations telling both for and against.
Corrected quoting code. BroJames Purgatory Host
I would regard faith, including atheism, as little more than a matter of taste. I'm not an atheist out of conviction, but simply because it's the belief I like. Similarly, my attitude to Christianity and other monotheistic faiths is much the same as my attitude to tea: I don't like the taste.
Practical matters with real-world consequences, such as the ones you cite are, to me, a completely different matter.
Those terms would do just as well. I don't think anything beyond the physical ability of human perception, even when enhanced by science, is attainable and even when it is attainable often it's not understandable. Do I accept the earth is 4.7 billion years old? Yes. Do I understand what that means? No, not in the slightest. It's true but outside by ability to comprehend.
Are all religions/beliefs/mythologies that claim a god existed before everything else objectively true if we prove that there is a god of some description?
One could substitute for 'x is provable in this system', 'the system is consistent if and only if the system with x or some equivalent added as an axiom is consistent'. (Obviously you can't prove that the original system is consistent.)
"In that respect".
So even if somehow humans manage to demonstrate that there is a god or must have been a god/creator it would still leave which god (if any) of all the gods variously believed in by humans it might be.
Yes. It would. You could only prove a particular religion is true if you could ascertain whether each of its truth claims was true.
If there is a creator God then all religions for whom being the creator God is a central.part of their definition of God worship that God.
It makes sense to talk about different gods only when they could in theory both exist at the same time.
I'm not sure you've grasped the point here. This is not about proving that God, as in the Christian God, exists, but imaging a scenario in which we somehow demonstrate (presumably through science) that there must have been a god, as in divine creator, of some kind.
The precise nature and identity of that god/deity would still be undefined and hence it could be the creator god of any number of beliefs and mythologies, extant and extinct, or indeed, none of them.
NB: the God of Islam is the God of Christianity.
Whilst I agree that is not something universally accepted. I've heard it preached from the pulpit that Islam is satanic.
I've also read claims that the God of Islam is a pagan moon deity
I think it's only 'not accepted' by those who insist that all other gods/deities are essentially demons/variations on Satan.
I don't know if it is helpful to be agreed with - but this is how I've done it / am doing it, too. Sometimes the kids do it for me - we were discussing the Greek words for love, I was stumbling around and my youngest suggested 'Jesus love' for agape, which is kind of a backwards version of the way that conversation normally goes. But then she was recently amazed to find out why we thought it funny when she informed us that 'Coronavirus has kind-of gone viral'. Like that Onion headline - 'I'm like a chocoholic, except with alchohol'
I tend to prefix my statements with 'I believe' rather than 'there is', when talking to my kids, and sometimes we challenge each others' beliefs.
Saying that the precise nature of the creator God remains undefined is sensible and true. The only caveat would be to say that Christian theologians have given some thought to what to do next. So Aquinas, having demonstrated, or tried to demonstrate, the existence of that which every people calls 'God', goes on to try to show that such a God must be good, unlimited in knowledge, and so on.
It's when you say that the identity of the creator god is still undefined that you're not making sense. If the creator god exists then all creator gods in whatever mythology are better or worse descriptions of that god.
This is the scale of the problem https://pagan.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_Deities
Every deity listed (and there are a lot that aren't) has as much likelihood of being (or most closely resembling) the creator god.
How we would even begin to discover the identity and nature of the god whose existence had been demonstrated defeats me. We wouldn't even be able to tell if the creator god/deity still exists.
Most pagan deities are not considered by their believers to have created the universe, are they?
Not sure what your (dull, repetitive) post has to do with my comment.
What sort of Christian values do you want to teach them?
What about Christians who choose violence (including war), who persecute other people for economic gain?
Are you wanting them to believe something specific, e.g., the born again and go to heaven narrative, or how to live?
There is such a thing as Kreisel inconsistency. AIUI, Kreisel sentences are true but unprovable in any consistent system. I don't know much about Kreisel's work, and am unsure what constraints applied. It sounded like you were treating Godel incompleteness as Kreisel incompleteness.
Just read an interesting article in Popular Science--yes, I know, this is like the Reader's Digest--that suggests it might have been the dog that domesticated the human, not the other way around. Of course humans then did selective breeding to eventually get to the animals we know now. The article also compared dogs to wolves. One thing I thought interesting was dogs generally like to eat in isolation--they do not want to share their food; however. while wolves may fight over who gets the first portion of a meal, they will eventually share the food with everyone in the pack.
First you said that evolved behaviours allowed the species to survive and now you're saying the species survived because of other factors despite evolution. (What other factors are you thinking of anyway?)
You appear to imply that we are here despite the fact that our ancestors had more children than their contemporaries. We are here because our ancestors had more children than their contemporaries.
So now you are saying that there is a much broader understanding of ethical obligations nowadays that the behaviours that you said had arisen from evolution. What is the cause of that broader understanding then?
You say that it is not Christian ethical ideals. But if not Christianity what?
That appears to be 100% faith on your part (to use your phrase).
More precisely the individuals' genes enable reproduction. But they enable the reproduction of the individual, and the species only incidentally. Genghis Khan's genes have spread through most people in Asia, but that wasn't because Genghis was doing anything to help the species survive.
When our ancestors among homo habilis had genes that evolved into modern humans, the rest of homo habilis did not survive.
As I said originally, I am not really knowledgeable about Kreisel's work. Here is a link to a reference that discusses it and has references to his work if you wish to learn about it. I find the idea of a Kreisel sentence rather counter-intuitive myself. My experience with such ideas is that, when you finally drill down, they contain less than meets the eye -- although that wasn't true for Godel's work, of course.